Alicia and Joshua Davis never intended to become full time farmers. The husband and wife duo both have engineering degrees from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. However, when Joshua discovered aquaponics, a system of aquaculture in which the waste produced by farmed fish supplies the nutrients for plant growth, which in turn purifies the water, the two found themselves quickly immersed into the world of farming. Soon, they moved out into the country in order to have a building to practice aquaponics. Green Finned Hippy Farm was primarily incorporated as a tilapia hatchery. However, due to state regulations and frequent power outages, the couple decided to focus their efforts in on other aspects of farming.

Today, Alicia and Josh run a one stop shop for natural pasture range meat where sustainable practices are carefully followed and animals are treated with love and respect. They believe that the way to get the best tasting product is to make sure the livestock have the highest quality of life while alive. Livestock like chickens and goats graze the pastures and are rotated on the land. No pesticides, hormones, antibiotics or chemicals are used. Captured rain is the main source of water for the hogs. Cows are grass fed and grass finished and, therefore, do not eat grain their entire lives.

They sell their products at a little store on their farm, make deliveries to Troy and O’Fallon, Illinois, and are kick-starting their “Farm to Table” delivery service this fall! The goal of the delivery service is to make obtaining high quality pasture raised food fast, easy, and convenient! At their Farm Store, you can find pasture-raised pork, eggs, beef, poultry, eggs, goats milk and pesticide-free produce. They even sell American Mulefoot Hog, an endangered species of hog that is not sold anywhere else in Illinois. Most of the products they sell cannot be found in any store.

Along with their selling of their products, the Davises also hold events on their farm to connect with people from the surrounding community. Their farm aims to offer year round activities to draw people to the farm. Whether it’s our spring and fall goat yoga classes, summertime blackberry picking and cheese making classes, or wintertime “Off the Grid Sunset Yoga” classes and hard cheese making seminars, they want to bring people back to the land, see where their food is being raised, and connect with it on a new level.… Read the rest

Community Development, Education and Access. We are a community development organization that uses the power of growing food to change people’s lives and communities. Working with small children to adult populations we try to serve all demographics while focusing on underserved populations.

What other organizations in STL does your organization work with on food issues?

Always. We are focusing a lot of energy on finding a new, centralized location for our offices and hoping to build our Land Trust over the winter heading into next spring.

Where do you see the future of STL’s food system?

We have work to do. I think there are a lot of opportunities for St. Louis to be a leader in the Midwest when it comes to a robust food system. We have land to allocate to food projects, which is a very unique situation if you take other cities into consideration. As a region, we have a lot of resources in Agriculture, if many of those entities can come together, we could do some great things for the region.

What do you do outside of your job that supports the local food system?

Buy food that is from local farms, support other organizations in their efforts and many of us are community and neighborhood gardeners outside of work. We always try to practice what we preach.

I’m not actually a farmer per se, but rather a farm educator. I run all of the youth programs at CAASTLC’s Seeds of Hope Farm, with our teen employment program being the bulk of what I do.

What is your background?

I was raised in Southern California and attended college at the University of California Santa Cruz, which is home to many spectacular farms as well as the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems. Living and studying among the redwoods at UCSC exposed me to a way of thinking that regarded the natural environment and all its inhabitants as sacred.

Between classes, I would ride my bicycle to the 30-acre campus farm, sit beside my favorite apple tree atop a hill overlooking the ocean, and complete my coursework. These moments of pause shaped my worldview and set me on a path of growing food, cultivating community, and reconnecting young people to the land.

Throughout my time as a student at UCSC, I volunteered at the Santa Cruz Homeless Garden Project – a 3-acre organic farm that provides transitional employment to people who are homeless. This was my first hands-on farm experience and I absolutely loved it! So, about a year after graduation, I traveled to Costa Rica to work on two more farms: Finca Luna Nueva and Rancho Mastatal. These experiences introduced me to biodynamic farming, earthen building, tropical plant medicine and, oh, so much more.

I spent the next couple years of my life traveling, working for Cafe Gratitude (an incredible plant-based restaurant that supports local farmers), and soaking up the Bay Area beauty. I eventually made up my mind to attend graduate school and was lucky enough to earn my MSW right here in Saint Louis. Through a serendipitous encounter with Gabriel Hahn, former farm manager of Seeds of Hope, I landed a graduate school apprenticeship on the farm, which later evolved into a full-time job developing and delivering farm-based youth programs at Seeds of Hope.

How long have you worked on the farm?

I’ve been employed at CAASTLC’s Seeds of Hope Farm for three years. Wow, time flies!

Why is it important for people to know where their food comes from?

Simply put, because knowing how your food was grown and who grew it increases your capacity to practice gratitude for the time, energy, resources and love poured into it.

What has been your greatest struggle as a small farmer in the food industry?… Read the rest

I work for the St. Louis MetroMarket which is part of the grocery/retail section of the food system. The MetroMarket bus is a City Transit bus converted into a mobile health food store. The purpose of the bus is to bring healthy, cheap, locally sourced vegetables and fruits to neighborhoods in North St. Louis City and North St. Louis County that are food deserts. The bus stops at 10266 West Florissant Ave in Dellwood from 3:00-6:00 pm on Fridays and at the intersection of Jefferson and Cass in the Jeff VanderLou Neighborhood from 10:00-1:00 pm on Saturday morning. We are a non-profit organization and most of the money we get, we get from grants and other non-profits in St. Louis. Therefore we can subsidize food for our members and sell food at cost, without marking it up. Our main suppliers of food in St. Louis are Good Life Growing and Urban Harvest STL. These organizations grow produce for us and donate it. Lots of the fruits and vegetables that we sell, we get from local farms here in the St. Louis region. We love these relationships. However, the reality is that you can’t grow some of the food that our customers want, like lemons or grapes, year round in St. Louis. The market bus is utilized, even though its only its second year. It was possible that people wouldn’t come. What inspires us to keep working is that it the bus actually is used. There is demand for health food and fruits and vegetables that has built up over time.

What other organizations in STL does your organization work with on food issues?

We work with so many other organizations. There is such a good community of organizations and people that care about food issues in St. Louis. Operation Food Search is the most important organization that we work with. They store our bus and lets us use an office. They also provide healthy cooking demonstrations on site. The Fit and Food Connection handles all of the extra produce that we cannot sell. Fit and Food Connection takes our unbought produce, converts it into healthy meals and then delivers the meals to low income community members. The Sun Cafe, a non-profit social enterprise, in Hyde Park (north St. Louis), that employee people from neighborhood, supplies us with ready to eat items like snacks and desserts.… Read the rest

Marketing locally produced foods from small producers to consumers in the St. Louis area via a Combined CSA model—we are in our 10th season.

What other organizations in STL does your organization work with on food issues?

Though we have worked with several organizations in the past, such as Slow Food St. Louis, we currently are still involved with Missouri Coalition For the Environment.

Any projects in the works?

We have submitted a grant proposal for a project to work with International Institute for cross training refugee growers with our local farmers. We hope to provide a CSA for the immigrants, including more of produce they are missing from their homelands. Our farmers will help the immigrant farmers overcome the challenges of growing in our region, and their farmers will teach our farmers new produce and their own growing techniques.

Where do you see the future of STL’s food system?

Boy do I wish I had a crystal ball. I have a hope that people are going to come back around to caring more about their food being sourced locally. It seems like the last few years has seen a move from consumers supporting farmers’ markets and CSA’s to them supporting convenience services that deliver prepared meals or apportioned ingredient, easy-to-follow recipes that aren’t sourced locally.

What do you do outside of your job that supports the local food system?

I try to primarily support restaurants and markets that focus on locally sourced foods. I always ask where the foods are sourced from in order to let the establishment know that it’s important to the consumer. I talk local food to everyone everywhere I go to raise awareness.

We three have slightly different backgrounds. Andrew and Jacob have been farming for about as long as they have been able to stand up! Bryan is late to the work and he started when the team assembled in 2011 to begin our joint work as Three Spring Farms.

What is your background? How long have you worked on the farm?

Andrew and Jacob grew up on a family farm in Perry County, Missouri and have been participating in that life and work for as long as they can recall. Both have studied agriculture at the University of Missouri and carry on as the 4th generation of family farmers in the region. Bryan had a brief exposure to farming years ago as a student in central Illinois, and now returns to it as a partner with the Bachmann brothers. We have been working together since the inception of Three Spring Farms in 2011.

Why is local food important?

Local food is important to the consumers because they are buying from the producers of the food, not middlemen, and they are directly supporting the agricultural community by doing so. Local food is fresher and has traveled fewer miles to get to the plate. The money of the end consumers stays around longer too- we get paid and then we buy fencing from Muellers down the road or have our well repaired or our septic system rehabbed by local craftsmen. When the money leaves the community, it is gone, but when locals lean on each other, those dollars circulate and provide benefit over and over again.

How do you define ‘sustainable’?

Philosophically and theoretically, we think sustainable describes farming processes that could go on indefinitely without injuring the land, injuring the environment or impoverishing the producer. Practically, we are raising meat, eggs and vegetables without pesticides, hormones, antibiotics or other expensive inputs from off the farm. By practicing a “pasture-based” program, we are building soil rather than depleting it and we are leaving the farms cleaner and better as we use and repair them. Grassfed animal husbandry builds the carbon stores in the soil and converts sunlight to food energy. That is sustainable!

What do you wish people knew about the food system in St. Louis?

We wish more people knew about the various methods to meet and purchase directly from producers from Missouri and Illinois. We take part in two farmers markets (Kirkwood and Tower Grove) and these activities take a lot of time and expense to get to and to be a part of.… Read the rest

We work on a lot of different sections of the food system at the exact same time. We grow food organically here in Ferguson in North County so we are producers. We are also educators, through our farm school. We teach people, adults and kids, where their food comes from and how to grow it themselves. We run the region’s only part-time, full season, apprenticeship program, which I like to think about as “farm university.” Folks who are 14 years old and above can come and dedicate ten hours a week to hands on time growing food and time in the classroom learning the skills and craft of organic farming. We hope they take what they learn and apply it to their real lives. We also work on food access. We just completed a Community Food Assessment to survey where people have the greatest need here in Ferguson. We are currently in the second phase of the project, trying to address the gaps that people see. We are trying to get people to the Ferguson Farmers Market, by use of a free shuttle that drops people off at the market.

What other organizations in STL does your organization work with on food issues?

We are currently, continuing our community food assessment. We will be holding community input and listening sessions to try and inform the work we are doing here as well as try to address food access issues in Ferguson on the community level. We are working with the Ferguson Farmers Market to increase access to the market, through transportation to and from the market and transportation to farm for farm tours every Saturday.… Read the rest

I was raised on the farm I currently own. I have been in love with this land and the potential it holds as far back as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of climbing out of my crib at nap time to go check on the hogs. When I was young I couldn’t get enough time with the animals. I guess not much has changed in that respect.

What is your background? How long have you worked on the farm?

I inherited the farm after my father, Jeffrey C. Metrick, who passed away in 2012. I started running the farm as a business in 2015.

Why is local food important?

Local food is the only food system I am aware of that builds trust through close relationships and transparency. One of the easiest ways to have a deep understanding of the food you eat is by knowing the person who grew it, asking them questions and visiting their farm. Local food affords people that opportunity every day.

How do you define ‘sustainable’?

When I think of being sustainable I see a long view of the future of humanity and our place in nature. I see functioning ecosystems, clean energy and farmers using nature as a template for their practices. We have a difficult road ahead of us and we are starting this battle for our future at a disadvantage. All the farmland in the United States is severely depleted of nutrients and life.

The ecosystem I inherited is no different. It was run down from years of heavy tillage, monoculture crops, overgrazing by livestock and chemical inputs. I am in the business of regenerating what has been lost. The main goal of my farm is to repair the ecosystem functions and regenerate my soil. The meat and eggs from my animals are just a byproduct of the way in which I choose to repair the land.

What do you wish people knew about the food system in St. Louis?

It could offer a huge economic opportunity if more people chose local foods.

Why is it important for people to know where their food comes from?

Eating is one of the most intimate acts we participate in every day. If you don’t know who raised your food how do you really know what you are getting? Can you be certain the food you are choosing aligns with your values and dietary choices.… Read the rest

The Green Dining Alliance is a certification program that works with restaurants to reduce their environmental impact through reducing their energy and water use, reducing waste, educating their staff and customers, and encouraging them to source more local food. Restaurants in the GDA receive an audit, then a tailored report based on the audit to evaluate where opportunities for environmental improvement exist. The GDA sends restaurants recommended vendors – local farmers and pasture-raised animal products – so they have options, if they choose to purchase local products. Extra points are given on audits for local food and pasture raised food, and lots of extra points are given for restaurants with their own gardens and urban farms. In other words, we work in the food system by encouraging and rewarding restaurants for choosing local, environmentally responsible products. We also use social media to promote work in the STL food system, including the good work of MCE’s STLFPC, as well as educating the public about issues from food security (and food insecurity) to food waste.

What other organizations in STL does your organization work with on food issues?

The Green Dining Alliance is expressly an apolitical organization – which means we are not allowed to promote policy or legislation- even if the policy or legislation is obviously good for the community. What we can do is promote the excellent work of our friends in the industry: Food Roof, HOSCO, The Sweet Potato Project, EarthDance Farms, Gateway Greening, the STLFPC, and countless urban farms. We are also involved with OneSTL, helping with the food working group to identify and address our greatest obstacles to a vibrant food system.

Any projects in the works?

The GDA has a brand new rewards program for the public, called the Green Dining Club. We also have a fundraiser coming up this October 26th – the Taste of Green. The GDA has recently done the legwork to make it possible for other cities to adopt our program – we are hopeful that this idea could take off in other areas.

Where do you see the future of STL’s food system?

I am optimistic – I’ve witnessed lots of improvements in the last few years, including more urban farms, more backyard chickens, and more restaurants and diners looking for local, responsibly raised foods.… Read the rest

Sandy Sorensen is not your average pork farmer. In the overcrowded field of meat vendors at the farmer’s market, Sorensen sets herself apart by inventing new, innovative sausages. Examples of her “wacky” products include sriracha honey chicken jerky, Total Eclipse (black, polish sausage with squid ink) and maple chocolate bacon skewers. She is well known at the Carbondale Farmer’s Market as “The Sausage Lady” where she regularly sells out in just two and a half hours. She is committed to treating her pigs with love and respect. They are never confined to a building and have about four acres each to free roam. They are provided a diet of bugs, grub roots, farmers market produce, acorns and nuts and alfalfa mix and hay in the winter.

How did you get into farming?

I was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs. My dad allowed me to have a horse that we boarded out at a local stable. I showed Hunter Jumpers until I was injured in a fall. I then took to exercising Standardbred Horses. In 1983, I purchased a small farm where I raised Thoroughbred horses, eventually started to train and race them I quit in 1994, because of my dissatisfaction in the inhumane treatment often seen at the track. I began teaching and one of the classes I taught was Environmental Science. In the class we watched a movie called Farm, Inc. I was appalled at the treatment of the animals. The very next day, while driving to work, I was along side of a livestock truck crammed with pigs. I thought what a hypocrite I was. I was supporting the industry I despised by purchasing meat from Walmart. It was condoning the industry I hated. When I got home, I told my husband, we’re getting pigs! He wanted to know what I knew.

What are some of the barriers you’ve faced?

When I first started it was a problem getting into the more established farmer’s markets. I started in smaller markets, who often balked at the price, comparing me to Walmart. In recent times, a barrier is the increase in the numbers of people selling pork, it’s a race to the bottom to see who can sell a cheaper pork chop. I have set myself apart by making and selling artisan sausages. I am called the Sausage Lady and now sell 27 kinds of sausage I make myself in a commercial kitchen.… Read the rest